Mom Blog Work

My husband taught my daughter to tie her shoes.

It was early evening and we were heading out for a little "neighborhood nature walk" to pick leaves. The sun was streaming through the windows in a way that makes me think about how much I love our house in the fall. I watched the two of them, sitting near the front door in a sunny spot on the wood floor. Margeaux leaned over her shoe intently, Andre coached from the side and demonstrated "bunny ears" with her laces. She did the second shoe almost by herself after his lesson and she jumped up cheering and high-fiving the rest of us. I high-fived and gulped.

She tied her shoe? She tied her shoe? Who is this big girl and where exactly did she come from? Shoe tying is for kindergartners and first graders...bigger kids. She can't possibly be old enough to not need us to tie her shoes. Could she?

She grabbed her Tankie, wrapped it around a baby doll and tucked them into her toy stroller and headed out the front door for our walk with Brady trailing behind her. Andre looked back at me and I blinked back tears and tried to play it cool, "She tied her shoe? Wow! Dude, you taught her to tie her shoes!"

It was one of those moments where you realize it's you just watched an everyday moment go by. Father-daughter, "I do it myself", independence, my sweet girl learning new things...I'm so happy I caught it all and recognize the specialness of that moment. A tiny milestone in the scheme of things. I can't quite imagine what the really big ones feel like.

As I threw a large load of darks into the dryer the other night I said to Andre, "Ya know, we could probably do two loads of laundry a week and have all the clothes for all of us for the full week because we all wear the same things over and over." Combine that with a load of towels and sheets and we'd have it whittled down to just 3 loads of laundry total. A miracle in simplifying in this house that's full of mountains of clean clothes that never get put away and piles of dirty clothes that nobody cares if they get washed.

We all want the same clothes - - for me, my 3 black tees, my good jeans and undies. For Andre, a few polos, white shirts and his good jeans. For Mo, the same set of comfy tees, a few maybe pairs of black or striped stretch pants. For Brady, well, he doesn't care yet but I have a few outfits that are my favorite on his little chubby body.

This all led me to think about a personal uniform. I mean, really, there are tons (I used to work at corporate Gap...hello discount impulse shopping!) of clothes in my closet that don't fit my body anymore after two kids or just don't get worn at all. What if, just what if, I packed all of those up and gave them away and limited my wardrobe to a few select colors, nice shirts, a few pairs of jeans and a few pair of nice pants? I work in a very casual office and am only there 3x a week so I could do well with a limited wardrobe. I could do pops of color in jewelry, camisoles, shoes and scarves.

Here's my ideal wardrobe set up:

• tees in neutral colors, mainly black and white - nice, thick, good quality, various necklines
• jeans - 4 pairs (I own these now)
• slacks -1-3 pairs (I own these now)
• khakis - 1-2 pairs (I own these now)
• hoodies - 1-2
• quarter length sleeve tees/sweaters in black, neutral colors
• cardigans - 5-6, various colors and weight
• dressy black dress (I own this now)
• skirts - 3 (I own these now)

I really think that would get me pretty much anywhere - work, weekend, weddings, parties, interviews, etc. It's actually probably a few more of some items than I'd actually need but not over the top, I don't think. It's more consciously limiting color and making sure pieces are of good quality and mix and match easily. There are a few pieces I would need to buy but for the most part I own all of the bottoms so it would be a matter of finding the right tops and buying them in multiple colors.

Would people think it's weird? Probably not that much. I wear the same things already and it's more limited than the above list would allow.

Tempting! I think I will head that way with my next purchases and head upstairs with a few garbage bags and tackle the out of control closet.

Don't you just love short weeks? It means Good Stuff comes that much sooner!

Megan's Good Stuff

• Post-travel rest days at home
• Getting the boys ready for back-to-school
• Rey potty training!
• Submitting our mama mantras app to the App Store (finally!)

Karissa's Good Stuff

• Bagel day
• Margeaux and her baby dolls
• Visiting Spokane
• Bruchi's
• Hoodie weather

We love what they are doing over at Oh De Doh with their favorite books series. So many great books! It got me thinking of our go-to story time books and the books I can't wait for my kids to read.

The book that everybody in our house can recite (and have been reciting for years) is "A Day at the Market" by Sara Anderson. It's beautiful, takes place in nearby Pike Place Market and it is fun to read aloud. "Mahi, mahi, rubber boots, donuts, paper, lots of loot!"

Here are the other favorites we reach for a lot in our house:

1. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett: So much fun and imagination in this one. It was one of my favorites when I was younger.
2. If You Give A... series by Laura Numeroff: Silly and funny. Our favorite is If you Give a Cat a Cupcake.
3. We Help Mommy by Jean Cushman: A classic. We read the very same book I read when I was little with my Grandma.
4. What Baby Needs from the Sears Children Library: This and "Baby On The Way" were great prep books for becoming a big sibling.
5. Cars and Trucks and Things that Go by Richard Scarry: More for the pictures and finding Goldbug than the actual reading part.
6. Bear Snores on by Karma Wilson: This whole series is cute but this is our favorite of the set.

I have a mental list of chapter books to start reading aloud in a few years. A Little Princess, the Little House series, Anne of Green Gables. Oh, I can't wait to share Anne with Margeaux! Makes me giddy just thinking of it. But that's a whole different topic!

What are your family's favorite story books?

Stay tuned for Megan's list next week. What are your favorites?

Wooooooo....we made it. Now let's enjoy the weekend! Here are the links we found interesting this week:

Weelicious is a new-to-me kids food site that looks fun. Thanks to my sister for passing that one our way!

What's a list of links on MBW without some love to OhDeeDoh? They featured some sweet little reading nooks this week. I'm feeling inspired to get something together for our family. They also had a Make Your Own Sketchbook link last week that looks fun.

Bento box queen Wendolonia has a great PDF of lunch ideas posted. We aren't packing lunches yet but still a great resource!

Love the 10 Incredible iPhone Portrait Photos over at Mashable. Makes me feel better about not digging out the real camera as often.

This one will get your blood boiling. Over at Mixed and Happy we learned about a Mississippi school who designates particular offices for "black" or "white" students. It's enraging! How are these things still happening in our country?

For our fellow web designers our there, Smashing Magazine has a write up featuring a ton of great (and free!) wireframing kits. These are definitely going to save me some time!